SPECIAL EPISODE 009, Part Two: Sales Training Expert John Asher Shares How Understanding Neuroscience Techniques Will Improve Your Sales Skills

JOHN’S CLOSING TIP TO EMERGING SALES LEADERS: “We know that there are many cognitive biases that help us influence buyers. There’s about 100 of them, about 50 of them apply to sales. Figuring out which of those apply to sales, how to use them and what’s the practical application for salespeople is critical.”

LISTEN TO PART ONE OF THIS EPISODE HERE!

For those of you who’ve been long time listeners of the Sales Game Changers podcast, you may recall John Asher was featured on Episode #10.

John is the president of ASHER Strategies and an expert on neuroscience and sales and the author of the sales best seller Close Deals Faster.

He is a top sales trainer to Vistage Groups around the globe.

If you’d like to learn about John’s sales journey, what he thinks from a sales perspective in his career go back and check out our episode with John.

You can also watch John at the Institute for Excellence in Sales 2017 award event speaking about Neuroscience by clicking the image below.

Find John on LinkedIn!

Fred Diamond: John, on Part 1 of this podcast we talked about how sales professionals need to sell to what’s known as the old brain, the emotional brain, reptilian brain as compared to the new rational brain. Why don’t you summarize what we talked about on the first episode for about 30 seconds to a minute? Then we’re going to get into some specific applications that sales professionals can apply to be more successful at selling once they understand how the customer utilizes their brain to process information and make decisions.

John Asher: Hey, Fred. Great to be back with you. We know now from neuroscience studies in 70 countries that all decisions really come from the old brain, which is a combination of the reptilian brain and the emotional brain. If you’re going to wake up the buyer’s old brain we now know from many functional MRI machines – think of a person with a helmet on with an MRI built into it – that there are 6 stimuli to wake up the buyer’s old brain and if you’re with a suspect, prospect, current customer and you’re not using any of those stimuli, closing rates would be zero.

We also know that there are many cognitive biases that help us influence buyers. There’s about 100 of them, about 50 of them apply to sales and that’s essentially what we’ve been doing for the last 3 years. Figuring out which of those apply to sales, how to use them and what’s the practical application for salespeople is critical.

Fred Diamond: Very good. It’s critical to understand this and what we’re going to be talking about today is once you understand how the customer’s brain works, it’ll help you accelerate your process to sale success and it’ll help you take your sales game to the next level. Thinks with understanding the customer always starts off with me, thinking about what’s in it for me, how does this apply to me. Also, how they synthesize information more effectively using images and using video. We talked about strategies on how you can become more effective.

Also talked about the whole concept that it’ll be more effective if you have a sales call and the customer does all the talking. Obviously then the customer’s thinking about how this applies to you and elite sales professionals understand that, they know that and that is how they take their game to the next level.

John Asher: Exactly.

Fred Diamond: The second part of the podcast series is on cognitive biases. Tell us John, what exactly is a cognitive bias? I know you’ve identified about 100 cognitive biases, about 50 of them apply to sales and marketing. We’re going to talk about a handful of them today that the sales leaders listening to the podcast should be conscious of and knowledgeable on to be more effective. To start off, what is a cognitive bias? What does it mean so the people understand what we’re going to be talking about?

John Asher: The old brain is a complex organ, 100 billion neurons, each neuron has 10 thousand sinapsis or connections and it takes a ton of energy to make decisions. The old brain has learned to develop shortcuts, rules of thumb, tendencies and neuroscientists call them cognitive biases. Cognitive meaning brain and a bias means a tendency, shortcut, rule of thumb. There’s a special case of a cognitive bias called a heuristic, and that is when a cognitive bias can lead us astray and cause us to make a bad decision.

An obvious example would be stereotyping. So somebody comes in to apply for a software developer job, got their ball cap on backwards, shirt’s hanging out, beard’s not trim, tennis shoes are actually dirty and so our old brain could just dismiss them based on appearance, but it could be that they’re the best software developer available in Northern Virginia. Now, that’s a heuristic. It’s a cognitive bias stereotyping that’s led us astray and caused us to make a bad decision.

Fred Diamond: Let’s start off. We’re going to talk about 6 or 7 of these today that you’ve identified that are critical at sales. The compliment bias, what does that mean?

John Asher: The compliment bias means that when you compliment another person a lightning bulb goes off in their brain. Anytime anybody gets a compliment, they’ll immediately smile and they feel great and a lot of research is done on this in the 60’s by the founder of the Gallup organization. He was researching how do you make people better when almost every psychologist was researching how to fix people, and he wrote a little book about it called How Full is your Bucket. A short book, quick read. What the book means is if you compliment other people, you’re filling up their bucket.

If you’re criticizing other people, you’re emptying their bucket. In most companies where the compliments flow a lot, the culture is just through the roof. The practical application for sales is always compliment the buyer quickly when you first meet them. It doesn’t mean you have to compliment their shirt, but do great research. Be able to compliment them on a video you watched on their website or their website, or their facilities or perhaps how you were treated by the receptionist. Always compliment the buyer early.

Fred Diamond: John, you’re wearing a great shirt. That is a good-looking shirt, and that was a great answer. How do we avoid being kowtowing or obsequious? How do we be genuine? A lot of the people listening on today’s Sales Game Changers podcast sell complex products, they sell IT solutions, financial solutions, detailed manufacturing or analytical type solutions and you’re selling to intelligent people. You’re selling to [Inaudible 06:04] people, people who don’t have a whole lot of time, they have big decisions to make. Talk about being complimentary in a genuine way versus being obsequious or kowtowing.

John Asher: Of course it has to be relevant, it has to be true. You can’t just make stuff up to compliment. Again, great salespeople are the great researchers, the great preparers. They will again do great research and know they can compliment something about the buyer’s company – website, video, facilities, whatever. It’s got to be genuine, of course.

Fred Diamond: What are some strategies you have for the Sales Game Changers listening to today’s podcast to know something specific about the customer? To do that type of research so that they can compliment them on something genuine like a big win or something like that, a new certification.

John Asher: Just great research. Sales navigate or level on LinkedIn, social media.

Fred Diamond: OK. How about CrystalKnows? You talked about that a lot, is that a good solution for them to be using?

John Asher: CrystalKnows is really about your personality style, so you probably wouldn’t compliment somebody about their personality style but CrystalKnows is great to use to modify your approach to their personality.

Fred Diamond: Very good. How much complimenting should you do?

John Asher: Just one, right up front.

Fred Diamond: Let them know that you’ve done the research, you’re thinking about them, you understand what’s important as well before you begin the call.

John Asher: Quick example, I’m an outgoing person, I talk to 100% of the people I meet in the elevator. The reason I do in the play it forward idea is #1, I have validated them as a person worth talking to and about a third of the time I can give them a compliment and it’s a sincere compliment. I just gave a young woman one recently in Fort Lauderdale. She was dressed for business, very well dressed, had nine bracelets that all matched her outfit. I mentioned that, her smile lit up the elevator. I made her whole day. That’s the compliment bias, we’re all biased towards people who compliment us.

Fred Diamond: That’s a great point. I recently had a meeting with a CEO of a company, and his assistant who scheduled a meeting was just energetic, she was great, she was very respectful to me and my time, if you will. When I met the CEO I said that, I said, “Hey, I want to let you know I had a great experience working with your administrator who scheduled today’s meeting. She was very respectful, nice and she really understood what you were looking to meet with me about” and he was blown away. He goes, “That made my day.” He said, “When I hear people talk about my people in such glowing terms, it really makes me feel good.” The reciprocity bias, what is that?

John Asher: We are biased towards people that give us stuff. It’s strong in every culture, particularly strong in China where I’ve been – I know it sounds like a lot – 103 times since 1980. In China, if you do a favor for somebody they must return the favor even if it’s 20 years later, and if they pass, their family must return the favor. In China it’s called the ren qing, but it’s strong in every culture. The practical application for salespeople is always bring the buyer something, maybe a book you read that applies to their business. Give them more information.

What happens when you give the buyer a gift – and again, it doesn’t have to be candy or something stupid – if you give them some reasonable gift their old brain now is energized to give you something back. Of course, in sales what you normally give back is greater insight into their issues, so always give the buyer something. In fact, Kyle who you know, our VP of sales put out a missive to all of us in the company two years ago. She said, “From now on, every email, every LinkedIn in mail you send must include a link to one of our educational videos.” Made a tremendous difference.

Fred Diamond: John, I’m going to take a short detour here. Not many people know this but you just eluded to this, you’ve been doing business in china for a long time and you’re one of the world renowned sales experts. By the way, for the Sales Game Changers, we mentioned this on the part 1. John also is the author of a best-selling sales book, Close Deals Faster that came out 2017. Great book, I highly recommend that you read it. John, why don’t you give us a little bit of an insight into selling in China? I know that’s not what’s on the agenda for today, but you eluded to it. We have Sales Game Changers listening around the world. Can you maybe give us a minute, a minute a half worth of insights into the differences between selling in the US where most of our listeners are or Australia or Europe versus what it means to sell in China?

John Asher: Interesting. My first book actually in 2012 the title was – for the Chinese – How to Sell to The West. I was a co-author with my president of operations in China. One of the interesting things about China is because they’re so skeptical as a people, because of foreign domination, confuses rules, men rule women and all that sort of thing then rapport building in China even more important than it is here.

That’s why you hear about going to China, you’ve got to go out and have 30 drinks, toast and all that sort of stuff. Unless they trust you, you just can’t do business with them. Rapport building all important. Second issue is if you’re selling in China, they want to see the boss. I’ve had many trips to China where I fly over, have pre meeting with my team, go to the meeting with the prospect, have a debrief with the team and fly back. The only reason I do that is because they must see the boss or you just can’t get the business.

Fred Diamond: Interesting. This isn’t a political podcast, this is Sales Game Changers podcast. We’re helping sales professionals around the world get better. We’re actually recording today’s podcast in July of 2018. Has the trade conversation changed selling in China for US or western companies? Have you seen anything yet?

John Asher: There’s always some upset to it, but I think as you know, the president is doing what most business people are like him to do, and that is get China to change their behavior. Stealing our IP, requiring that we have a partner if we’re going to sell in China and all that sort of thing. All this upset right now is just him negotiating the way most business people want him to negotiate. Most people don’t particularly like all these tweets and stuff, but what he’s actually doing from a business standpoint is what we want him to do.

Fred Diamond: I agree. A little bit of a detour there in the Sales Game Changers podcast. Special episode with John Asher, again my name is Fred Diamond. Not sure if I mentioned it or not but today’s podcast is sponsored in part by the Institute for Excellence in Sales. The third bias, John, is the similarity bias. Tell us about that.

John Asher: Hundreds of millions of years ago when you first saw somebody else, you had to make a decision. Is this a threat, is this a friend or is this a potential partner? You have all these images, and so if they’re similar to you then it looks safe. An example would be if you go over to a friend’s house and they have had a baby and the baby is 3 months old and you pick up the baby, what’s the baby do? Immediately cries. Stranger danger type of thing. We’re all biased towards people who are like us. Age, gender, religion, sports preferences, personality. We’re just totally drawn to people like us.

The practical application here for salespeople is use neurolinguistics programming techniques. Find out everything you can about the buyer before you go to see them so that you can use NLP. If I’m with a buyer for example, and they’re talking slower than I’m talking, I’m going to slow down. If they’re talking louder, I’m going to talk louder. If they’re doing all kinds of body language then I’ll slowly integrate in some body language. If they’re using acronyms associated with their business, I’ll pick up on those pretty much right away.

Then within a very short period of time in the buyer’s old brain, the old brain says, “Wow. This person is just like me, therefore they must be awesome” and you get the deal or the sale. It’s just called a similarity bias and I know you’ve heard of NLP and I know your listeners have heard of NLP. It’s been researched in Stanford, there’s a day, two day, week long courses, books. It all just goes back to the similarity bias.

Fred Diamond: Very good. Actually, we did a special episode with a man named Ramzy Ayachi who I know that you know who is an expert on NLP. That was a previous episode of the Sales Game Changers podcast, I believe it was special episode #6. We also wrote a couple articles about that based on that. John, we’ve spoken numerous times and a lot of people believe that they need to be the last company to present, that their odds are going to go up of being successful if they’re last but you tell me you want to be first. That’s called the anchor bias. Tell us about that.

John Asher: It’s another one of these cognitive biases. From a sales standpoint it upsets what we’ve all thought. If you’re going to make a presentation and two other companies are in the same time frame to a buyer or a group of buyers, because of the anchor bias you always want to be first. The reason is the buyer’s old brain anchors on your presentation. Unless your presentation’s all hosed up, when the buyer hears the next two they’re not looking for a reason to change their mind, the buyer’s mind.

Remember, the buyer’s old brain doesn’t want to change its mind, it looks for negative aspects to quickly get rid of it. If you’re giving presentations with other companies in the same time frame, always be the first to present.

Fred Diamond: Next we have the status quo bias, the competition is not your biggest competitor. Tell us how that applies.

John Asher: There’s three main companies in the US selling B to B and B to G – government. If you ask most salespeople and most companies, “Who is your biggest competition, your competitors or your status quo?” Most of them will say, “Probably the status quo” and it is true. 80% of the competition is really the status quo that was getting buyers to move. It’s why so many companies have what’s called a clogged pipeline, you just can’t get them over the finished line. To give you an example, if there’s a prospect for your customer and they’re unhappy with their current vendor we have a real chance. That’s a great opportunity but if they’re happy or OK with their current vendor or supplier, very difficult to get them to move.

There’s three reasons that all buyers know, one is there may be switching costs, they may have a warehouse full of inventory of the current vendors. All buyers know that all change is difficult, even good change and buyers just won’t shift for a small, say 4% improvement. In many cases, buyers will discount the salesperson’s claimed ROI and it’s not that they think salespeople are dishonest, they just know salespeople are going to put the best spin they can on their offerings. The practical application for salespeople is if you’re going to get buyers to move, you must address the switching cost.

For example, I’ve got a customer in Alabama, hardware manufacturer sales to distributors. When he’s trying to get a new distributor, he’ll offer to buy their inventory of the current distributor, sell it off in a discount but now he’s got a big new customer. That’s one way to address the switching cost. From the change standpoint you’ve got to show the buyer that they do not have to lift a finger to make the transition. You will totally take care of it.

Then from an ROI standpoint, we know from the latest ad from the big outsourcing and technology companies, Accenture, KPMG, Deloitte, etcetera – and it doesn’t matter what the financial metric is, higher revenue, higher cash flow, higher gross margin, lower cost – you must have at least a 15% improvement or buyers just won’t move. It’s an example of why the challenger sale idea is such a good idea, you’ve got that big difference you can make for the buyer. You see this play out in real life, we’ve all heard the Geico ad, “Give us 15 minutes and we’ll show you a 15% improvement.” If the Geico ad said, “Give us 15 minutes and we’ll show you a 4% improvement” would anybody call Geico?

Fred Diamond: Probably not. Again, we’re talking to John Asher. We’re talking about some cognitive biases to help you be more successful once you understand the neuroscience behind sales. John, let’s just take one more bias here. Let’s talk about the single option aversion bias and actually, let’s just take a second here. 

John Asher: The single option aversion bias means that if the old brain doesn’t see a choice, it can’t make a decision. It goes back to the first podcast we covered, that stimuli #4 clear difference. The practical application is never offer the buyer only one solution. There are numerous studies over all 33 industries that show if you offer the buyer a single solution, 10% will buy. If you offer 2 similar solutions, 64% will buy. That’s a difference in closing rates to 640% so the practical application is never offer the buyer just a single solution.

Fred Diamond: How about the choice paradox? How does that apply specifically?

John Asher: The choice part of the choice paradox bias means many salespeople think, “If I can just show the buyer all 7 of our solutions, one is bound to stick.” The paradox part of the choice paradox bias means if you offer the buyer’s old brain more than 3 choices, the old brain becomes confused.

Because of the choice paradox bias, never offer more than 3 because of the single option aversion never offer only one. So the right answer combining those two biases is always offer the buyer 2 or 3 choices, and you see this play out in real life a lot. If you take your partner to a fancy restaurant for your anniversary, it’s a white table cloth, how many specials do they typically have?

Fred Diamond: Two or three at the most.

John Asher: Yeah, two or three. At my age when I bought a car 30 years ago there was all these options to consider. Now, two or three packages of options.

Fred Diamond: Sometimes even when you’re the seller and you have to describe the three options, we saw this, I think it was a 2016 republican debate with Rick Perry, the governor from Texas. He said if he becomes the president he’s going to eliminate three agencies. He mentioned the first two and he couldn’t think about the third one. Same thing in selling and ironically the third one happened to be department of energy which of course he is the secretary of. You want to make it as simple for you. I think one of the key things here selling to the old brain, we talked about again the 6 stimuli, #2 was make it simple and easy to grasp not just for the customer but for you to be able to communicate as well.

John Asher: Agree.

Fred Diamond: John, before we wrap up, is there any final thoughts you want to share with us? Once again, thank you so much for the great insights on the last two podcasts. This is information that sales professionals around the world truly need to understand as it gets more complicated at the customer site, and you need to be as clear and differentiated as possible.

John Asher: I’m an engineer, so for me this is all thrilling. To be able to finally understand the real science behind sales and for the elite salespeople today it takes that understanding of the old brain stimuli and an understanding of the 50 cognitive biases that apply to sales.

The post SPECIAL EPISODE 009, Part Two: Sales Training Expert John Asher Shares How Understanding Neuroscience Techniques Will Improve Your Sales Skills first appeared on Sales Game Changers Podcast.

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EPISODE 010: Close Deals Faster Author John Asher Highlights the 6 Closing Principles and Other Critical Sales Lessons

John Asher is the co-founder and CEO of D.C.-based Asher Strategies, a business providing sales advisory services to companies from start-ups to Fortune 500. John has been in sales for more than 40 years. In his Navy career, John managed a $2 billion submarine combat-systems program in the Pentagon. In his second career, he co-founded a Northern Virginia-based engineering company that grew by a compounded growth rate of 42% per year for 16 straight years. His current business has provided sales aptitude assessments, sales training, and sales process improvement workshops in 22 developed countries, and I’m also proud to say that John’s company is a platinum sponsor of the Institute for Excellence in Sales. He is also the author of the new best-seller Close Deals Faster, now available on Amazon. John has been recognized by Vistage International as one of titseir top sales speakers on the planet.

Find John on LinkedIN!

Here’s a transcript to the podcast:

Fred Diamond: I know you had a great career and trained tens of thousands of sales professionals. Let’s talk about your career, though, in sales. How’d you get into sales as a career?

John Asher: As you know, I started my career in the Navy, and my last job was a program manager of a very large program. You’ve got three jobs in this role. First, you’re the program manager, managing the program. Second, you’re a buyer, and your staff puts out RFPs for local government contractors to bid on. And third, you are totally a salesperson. You’ve got to keep your program top of mind. You’ve got to respond to budget cuts. You’ve got to justify the ROI of your various components. My last job at the Navy was a total sales job.

Fred Diamond: Tell us a little bit about Asher Strategies and what excites you about what you’re doing today.

John Asher: Our main mode is to make the complex simple. The world is really getting more and more complex, especially with technology. Our whole deal is how can you help salespeople take all of that information out there and boil it down to what you really need to be successful in sales, and that typically includes having the right aptitude, having the right skills, and of course, having the right sales processes.

Fred Diamond: What were some of the key lessons you learned from your first few sales jobs that have stuck with you today?

John Asher: I learned early there’s a revolutionary new concept about sales, and that is listen to the customer. I know it sounds kind of funny, but you’d be shocked at how many people do not listen to the customer. It’s all about talk and not listen.

Fred Diamond: People just kind of wait to talk, waiting for their turn, show up and throw up, without even truly understanding the needs of the customer.

John Asher: Totally agree. The second thing I learned actually goes back to the Pentagon, and that is figure out when the buyer’s ready. I can’t tell you how many presentations I saw where there’s the admiral we’re presenting to, there’s a whole bunch of people in the room. It’s obvious to everybody but the presenter that the admiral’s ready to say yes, and as soon as he gives that hint, the presenter will say something like this: “No, no, no, no. I’ve got more stuff you need to see.” And so I learned way back when that you better know the six closing principles if you’re going to be a successful salesperson.

Fred Diamond: Do you want to summarize the six closing principles in one minute or less?

John Asher: Here they are:

Number one, you can’t close till the buyer’s ready.

Number two, if the buyer is ready and you don’t recognize it and you never propose a close, your chance of losing the sale is 90%.

Number three, knowing when they’re ready is a combination of the dialogue and the body language, and the body language is the true signal.

Number four, buyers want a definitive closing approach. They don’t want a two-paragraph close. Example, “Fred, would you like to get this project started on the 15^th of June?” There’s no ambiguity there. It’s pretty obvious what I’m asking for.

The fifth closing principle is once you propose the close, be silent. Let the buyer respond. The reason is buyers are thinking, considering, comparing, processing, and if you interrupt their thinking, they’re no longer thinking. And if you’ve interrupted their thinking it comes across as rude, and now the probability game is deal has gone down to 5%.

And the sixth closing principle: Once the buyer has agreed, quit talking about the deal. Shift the discussion to sports or weather, because you could say something that will cause the buyer—and it’s happened to me—to think, “Whoa, I didn’t realize your simulation didn’t cover that,” and shift back to no.

Fred Diamond: John, I know a lot of people consider you to be one of their mentors. Talk about an impactful sales mentor for you and how they impacted your career.

John Asher: I’ve never had a specific mentor other than some very senior admirals when I was in the Navy, and then my main mentors in my civilian career have really been books. I know it sounds impossible, but I really have read about 300 sales books, and one of the reasons is I’ve been to China 106 times. I’ll read two sales books, one over, one coming back; after a while it adds up. There’s where my real mentorship has come from, just learning from the experts.

Fred Diamond: John, what is the number-one sales success or win from your career that you’re most proud of? Take us back to that moment.

John Asher: Well, my second career, running an engineering company here in the D.C. area. On one day, we won three major government contracts for a total of $450 million, and that really caused the company to take off. It’s kind of amazing, three wins all together in one day.

Fred Diamond: How much of the $450 million came to your firm?

John Asher: Let’s see. I’m guessing for two all of it came, and for the third we had three or four subcontractors, so we probably got probably overall 80%.

Fred Diamond: That’s not bad. John, you’ve had a great career in sales. Did you ever question being in sales? Was there ever a moment when you thought to yourself, “It’s just too hard or not for me”?

John Asher: When you go back to aptitude assessments, you find people who’ve got a natural talent for sales, and I have a reasonably good talent. Then, for me it’s all about the thrill of the hunt and the close. I don’t care what I’m closing. I just want to close something. It’s not quite that bad but almost.

Fred Diamond: Before we take a break, I’m going to go off script here a little bit. You mentioned assessments a couple of times and how that’s a critical part of your business. Would you mind just talking about the value of assessments at this point, and what are some of the things that you’re looking to assess when you try to determine if a sales professional will be successful?

John Asher: There’s a whole bunch of them out there. We recommend one of the top three, and we represent it also, the APQ. It essentially shows you on a bell curve how much talent people have for sales. So, 20% of us are brilliantly suited, 60% are moderately suited, and 20% of us are not suited. Those 20% are like the engineers. So when we bring a customer to our company, everybody knows “Don’t let Bill talk to the customer.” We don’t want to hire knuckleheads from a sales standpoint. We want people who have high talent.

And so, you peel back the onion a bit and say, “What does it mean to have a high talent?” If you look at nine personality traits, I’ll just give you a couple where it’s pretty apparent. You want people with a high goal orientation firing up the building. You want people with a high level of assertiveness so they don’t have any problem at all asking for the order at the right time. You want people with a high social drive so they actually like to go out and meet new people and build rapport. And you want people with a low detail orientation so they don’t get stuck in analysis paralysis. Those are four of the nine traits where you can pretty much tell who’s got the talent and who doesn’t.

Fred Diamond: We’ll talk about that more later on, but we’re going to take a short break here, listen to one of our sponsors. John Asher of Asher Strategies has given us a lot of great information about his career, things that he’s thought about over time. When we come back after the word or two from our sponsor, John, I’m going to ask you for some of your tips for sales professionals who want to get ahead.

John, what’s the most important thing you want to get across to the young sales professionals and anyone who’s listening on today’s podcast to help them improve their career in sales?

John Asher: Selling is a terrific profession.The problem-solver salespeople are really the champions of the business world. As the late great Zig Ziglar used to tell us, “No sales, no company.” And so, when you watch really the great sales people, there’re four things happening:

One, they know how to build rapport and make an emotional connection with the buyer.

Two, they really know how to listen to make sure they totally understand what the buyer needs.

Three, they know how to come up with custom-crafted solutions to satisfy the buyer.

Four, and most important, they understand the neuroscience behind sales, the six stimuli to wake up the old brain and the various cognitive biases that cause us to be able to build relationships faster and close deals faster with buyers.

Fred Diamond: If someone came to you and said, “John, I’ve been selling for three years. I love it,” what would you tell them to do? What would be one thing that you would say, “You need to do this or you’re not going to be successful.”

John Asher: If you want to go to the next level… you [need to understand] the neuroscience behind sales. In the past several years there has been an explosive growth of studies in neuroscience, how the brain works, and therefore how the buyer makes decisions. We know this now from studies at Harvard and other top universities where buyers are fitted with many MRI machines on their head.

Various sales tactics are used by inside and outside salespeople so the researchers can actually see what part of the brain is awakened with what techniques and what part of the brain shuts down with what techniques.

Sales has always been thought to be an art. We all learn by trial and error. We learn from our boss. We learn from experts. But now we know for sure, sales is a science. And now that we have the science behind us, it has actually upset a lot of what we used to think was the right thing to do. Now we know it’s not, and we know what is the right thing to do.

Fred Diamond: That’s interesting because you and I have talked about The Challenger Sale many, many times. The customer is in control now. The customer has access to a lot more information, so you need to be providing value. You need to be helping them understand things that will help them in their business. I can understand how different parts of the brain now need to be enacted for you to be successful today versus where you could be successful 20 years ago.

John Asher: I totally agree. Let’s discuss for a minute the six stimuli that will wake up the old brain. We now know from these various studies that all decisions are made by a combination of the emotional and the reptilian brain called the old brain, and the decisions are not made by the logical brain, the rational brain. Some of the listeners may have heard that we decide on emotion and justify with logic. We’ve all heard some version of that. That’s been around for a long time. Now we know for sure that’s how it works.

So what this really means is if you are in competition with two other companies for the business, and all three companies have pretty good stuff, good quality, good service, reasonable prices, who gets the job? The one that makes the best emotional connection with the buyer gets the job, and if you want to wake up the buyer’s old brain there are six stimuli to work on.

First, the old brain is “me, me, me” focused, so it’s got to be about the customer and not about the salesperson.

Second, the old brain wants clear, simple-to-understand ideas. Make the complex simple. Keep it simple.

Third, the old brain is all about the beginning and the end. It takes a lot of energy for the brain to make decisions, so it’ll hear what’s happening at the first, go to sleep, then wake up again at the end.

Fourth, the brain wants a clear contrast.

Fifth, the old brain only sees pictures. So your picture better be self-explanatory, because the old brain does not see facts, figures, or logic.

Sixth, the old brain is all about excitement and engagement.

And we know from the Harvard studies now that the best way to wake up the old brain is with a customer’s story. In other words, a story about a customer you’ve worked with who’s similar to the prospect you’re after. As soon as you start talking about that, the buyer’s old brain starts thinking about that story, then the old brain feels like they’re in that story, and they also, near the end, start thinking, “Gosh, I wonder if this could happen to me too.”

Those are the six stimuli that we need to wake up in the buyer’s old brain, and if we don’t wake up any of those stimuli, closing rate is pretty much zero.

Fred Diamond: If we go to the IESBD YouTube channel, John gave a tremendous presentation on this topic back in June at the IES seventh annual award event. So if you’re out there listening, you need to understand how the customer’s brain works, and you need to understand how you trigger the right things based on how the brain works to help your sales happen. John, what are some of the things that you do to sharpen your saw and stay fresh?

John Asher: I really do read a sales book a week, subscribe to various sales manuals, and research on the internet because in today’s world, innovation is really everything. And as Fred mentioned, with all the information out there available to everybody it’s very easy to have one of your competitors go challenge the buyer, as in The Challenger Sale, and upset you. You really need to stay ahead of the competition, and for us who do sales training, aptitude assessment, sales process help we have to stay ahead of the pack.

Fred Diamond: John, what’s a major initiative you’re working on today to ensure your continued success?

John Asher: That is really this continuous learning, and so for our company, our main mode is keep the complex simple for salespeople to get what they need to do and [engage in] continuous learning. Making the complex simple sounds simple, but it’s actually not. Some of you may have heard a famous speechwriter from a long time ago. I won’t mention his name, but he basically said, “It took me a week to develop a 10-minute speech.” It takes a lot of hard work to boil down a complex technology, integration of technologies, and get it so salespeople can easily use it and be successful.

Fred Diamond: John, sales is hard. People don’t return your calls. They delete your emails. Why have you continued? What is it about sales as a career that keeps you going?

John Asher: As I said before, Fred, it’s the thrill of the hunt and the close. I really don’t care what I’m closing. I just want to close something. It’s not quite that bad but almost. And so, when you have people who have that attitude and have that aptitude and their personality fits for sales, then life’s pretty damn good. If sales is a struggle, then life is pretty tough.

Fred Diamond: John, you’ve given us some tremendous information, and we could probably talk for hours about things that you’ve discovered. I know you’re a student of sales. Give us one final thought. You talked before about making the complex simple, continuous learning, how the brain interacts and how as a sales professional you need to know about it, but give us one final thought to share to inspire our listeners today.

John Asher: I’ve read 500 business books over many, many years, and there’s one book I recommend above all business books. It’s a short read. It’s a story. It’s called The Go-Giver, and the subtitle is The Five Laws of Stratospheric Success. It applies to all fields really but especially to sales. It’s a two-hour read. It’s a fun read, and it changed my life when I read it 10 years ago.

Fred Diamond: John, before we wrap, you also have a book that’s coming out in the very near future. Tell us a little bit about your book.

John Asher: It essentially takes everything we’ve learned over 40 years of sales and puts it in one book. The title of the book is Close Deals Faster. It takes essentially most of the stuff I’ve been talking about. That is “How can you use all our new knowledge of how the brain makes decisions to close deals faster?”That’s the bottom line for almost all of us.

Fred Diamond: John, tell our audience how they can reach you.

John Asher: You could come to the website. It’s www.asherstrategies.com, and of course, we’re on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. We have on our website a new Vimeo portal where all of the various, probably 70, videos are, including the one that you mentioned.

Produced by Rosario Suarez

The post EPISODE 010: “Close Deals Faster” Author John Asher Highlights the 6 Closing Principles and Other Critical Sales Lessons first appeared on Sales Game Changers Podcast.